Matsuyama Castle

In the center of Matsuyama city is a large hill with a white castle perched at the top. It was founded in 1602 by Yoshiakira Katoh and took 24 years to complete. In 1635, the castle passed to Sadayuki Matsudaira, a relative of the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. It stayed with the Matsudaira clan until 1868.

Since the hill is quite high, I took a tram to get to the top. There was also a chair lift, but I decided to stick with the tram. At the top, I wandered around the beautiful Japanese gardens that surround the castle.

There is a famous Haiku describing Matsuyama Castle. It was written by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) one the of the great poets of Japan. Shiki is known for coining the word "Haiku", revitalizing that style of poetry, and writing about his experiences in Matsuyama.

You can imagine him looking at the castle when he wrote:

Matsuyama Castle
the keep is higher than
the autumn sky